Winter sunshine and a crispy morning with blue skies provided perfect conditions to visit The Saville Garden. I’ve visited this garden on a few occasions as it is very accessible from London. The winter garden has been more recently developed since I last visited in the winter. If you are a member of the […]

Most of us don’t venture out into the garden at night. Its too dark, too cold and not much to see. Taking a tour around a large botanical garden, lit with over 60,000 lights of all colours, shapes and sizes is a completely different experience and well worth the effort to venture out on […]

The garden in winter can look rather bare, unwelcoming and colourless. If you have evergreen plants such as conifers, ivy and pittosporum, as I have in my garden, then there is a dominance of green. Early spring flowering bulbs such as daffodils, crocuses, snowdrops provide a welcome splash of colour, but they […]

When you know you have a good frosty, freezing night ahead a fun activity for the great results the next day is to use your garden as a freezer. We took advantage of a cold spell last week and had a go at making ice sculptures. We hope you like the results. […]

Hurray hurray at last Jack Frost has worked his magic overnight and the garden looks all white and sparkily. We have been spoilt over the last few years by having snow and hard frost before Christmas. This year November and December have been so mild with even a light frost rare. The weeds are growing […]

We have just made a repeat trip to the Enchanted Woodland Garden at Syon Park, West London. We first visited this time last year and yet again it was a magical, enchanting and inspiring experience. The gardens are lit, spotlighted and hung with decorations. The organisers use the effect of changing colour, twinkling lights, […]

What a treat. A night time walk in an enchanted garden, full of light, shadow, glimpses of majestic trees and other delights. I couldn’t think of anything that could be more charming. After dressing for the Arctic, we were stuck in London Friday night traffic for 50 minutes on our way there and my 7 […]

A wander around a snow drop garden in February is an uplifting experience. I was lucky enough to do just that recently. The venue was Brandy Mount Gardens in Alresford, Hampshire. It holds national collections of snowdrops and daphnes, as well as growing other early flowering plants such as aconites and witch hazel. ﻿ Daphne […]

The cold weather has provided us with a great opportunity to make some lovely ice sculptures this week. We were reminded about them when one formed naturally from water left a sand mould in my son’s sand and water table. I photographed the result above. So the next evening the remaining moulds were washed and […]

Christmas Star Last spring when I cut back my dogwood in the front garden I had good intentions. I knew that the lovely red stems which had brightened up the garden all winter long could be put to further use. I hadn’t expected it to take me quite so long to use them. Last weekend we […]

Joe Swift had an article in this Saturday’s Times listing his garden highlights for this time of year. It got me thinking and looking in my garden to see what I would list. Well there is not a lot of growth and colour yet. Your list may well be longer. My favourite and a new […]